POLYGAMY IN ISLAM

Karen Armstrong, Muhammad: A Biography Of The Prophet

In seventh-century Arabia, when a man could have as many wives as
he chose, to prescribe only four was a limitation, not a license
to new oppression. Further, the Quran immediately follows the
verses giving Muslims the right to take four wives with a
qualification which has been taken very seriously. Unless a man is
confident that he can be scrupulously fair to all his wives, he
must remain monogamous. Muslim law has built on this: a man must
spend absolutely the same amount of time with each of his wives;
besides treating each wife equally financially and legally, a man
must not have the slightest preference for one but must esteem and
love them all equally. It has been widely agreed in the Islamic
world that mere human beings cannot fulfill this Quranic
requirement: it is impossible to show such impartiality and as a
result Muhammad's qualification, which he need not have made,
means no Muslim should really have more than one wife. In
countries where polygamy has been forbidden, the authorities have
justified this innovation not on secular but on religious grounds.
-- p. 191

Sir Abdullah Suhrawardy, The Sayings of Muhammad

With regard to polygamy, Muhammad did not introduce this practice,
as has so often been wrongly alleged. The Scriptures and the other
sacred books bear abundant proof of the fact that is was
recognized as lawful and, indeed, widely practised by patriarchal
prophets, Zoroastrians, Hindus and Jews. In Arabia and all the
surrounding countries a system of temporary marriages, marriages
of convenience, and unrestricted concubinage was also prevalent:
this, together with polygamy, had most disastrous effects on the
entire moral and social structure, which Muhammad remedied.

Muhammad married Khadija at the age of 25, and he took no other
wife during the twenty-six years of their married life. He married
Aisha . . . at the age of 54, three years after the death of
Khadija. After this marriage, he took other wives, about whom
non-Muslim writers have directed much unjust criticism against
him. The facts are all these ladies were old maids or widows left
destitute and without protection during the repeated wars of
persecution, and as head of the State at Medina the only proper
way, according to the Arab code, in which Muhammad could extend
both protection and maintenance to them was by marriage. The only
young person was Maria the Copt, who was presented to him as a
captive of war, and whom he immediately liberated, but she refused
to leave his kind protection and he therefore married her.

. . . 'Ye may marry of the women who seem good to you two or three
or four, but if ye fear that ye cannot observe equity between
them, then espouse but a single wife' (iv.3) . . . the growing
majority of Muslims interpret the above verse as a clear direction
towards monogamy . . . -- p. 41-43

Sherif Abdel Azeem, Women In Islam Versus Women In
The Judaeo-Christian Tradition

Why are there four female converts for every male convert in the
US? This paper provides clues by examining the teachings of the
three monotheistic faiths with respect to women.